Each year, thousands of amateur cooks put their outdoor cooking skills to the test. They vie for cash, trophies and bragging rights at various barbecue and grilling contests held across the country.

Once confined to the backyard, barbecue (low and slow cooking) and grilling (fast and hot) are now serious business with contests such as Kansas City’s American Royal, attracting more than 500 teams and offering in excess of $50,000 in prize money.

So what sets a grand champion apart from the rest of the pack? Judging criteria varies depending on sanctioning body. Guidelines established by the Kansas City Barbecue Society rate meat on taste, tenderness and appearance. Over two days of smoking, cooks will season, inject and slow cook each of four categories — brisket, pork shoulder, chicken and pork ribs. Meats are then presented to judges in “blind” boxes, each 30 minutes apart, to be hyper-analyzed by a table of certified judges.

And while the actual judging of four categories is complete in two hours, from a competitors’ standpoint the entire process is much longer.

Before even arriving at one’s first contest, competitors need to lock down the essentials — everything from canopies to tables to wash tubs. Several hits to the bank account later, you’re ready to roll. Or are you? You’ll also need to secure perishables and consumables for team members, including water, beer, sodas, steaks for dinner and so on. Next up is the selection of one’s competition meat. On average, teams cook two to four briskets, 16 pieces of chicken (generally thighs), two to four pork butts and four to six racks of pork ribs.

From that smoky smorgasbord, competitors will only turn in the best six portions of each type of meat. When judged, the differences between those six portions and those of another team can be slight, so picking the proper meat from the start can often be the deciding factor between a Grand Champion and an also-ran. The variables are numerous: breed, grade, dry aging or wet aging, weight, flats versus full packers…and that’s just the brisket.

Then contest weekend arrives. Since briskets and pork shoulders will cook for 16 hours or more, teams generally arrive early the day before entries are turned over to the judges. Canopies are set up, mobile kitchens are organized and the prep work begins.

All of the meat must be trimmed of excess fat and to uniform thicknesses, then injected or marinated in top-secret concoctions and rubbed down with special blends of barbecue seasoning before going to the smokers for a slow, smoky overnight cook.

Between the time the meat goes on and the boxes are turned in for judging, any number of things can go wrong. Cooking day is spent anguishing over spikes in cooking temperatures, dealing with sudden bursts of wind and rain, meat refusing to reach temperature fast enough and other unforeseen issues. But in the end it is out of your hands and into the hands of the judges.

Competitors pack up their equipment and head to the awards ceremony to see if all of the hard work was worth it. Sometimes the drive home is spent reveling in victory and other times it’s spent complaining about what went wrong and swearing to never compete again (only to decide the following week to give it one more shot!).

This, for better or worst, is my world — the world of competition barbecue.

**************
This post originally appeared in the September issue of Foodie News. It was written by Clint Cantwell, founder of Smoke In Da Eye, 2008 New York State barbecue champions. Cantwell is creator of the Web sites smokeindaeye.com and aBBQnation.com. He is on Twitter @SmokeInDaEye.